Tisha B'Av, Rabbi Akiva, and the Foxes
Weekly message · Rabbi Yossi Lipsker
This Saturday night we will observe Tisha B'av. Considered the saddest day of the year for the Jewish people, it recalls the destruction of our holy Temple, the Bait Hamikdash in the holy city of Jerusalem.
An interesting episode in the Talmud. As Rabbi Akivah and the sages are walking over the ruins of the Temple, the scene of foxes scurrying over the smoldering rubble overwhelms the sages with sadness and they tear their clothes in mourning. Rabbi Akivah too, rends his garment but then begins to laugh and dance atop the ruins! What a scene—on one side the grieving sages, on the other the jubilant ecstatic Rabbi Akivah.
Another surprising and delightful tradition: the Messiah is born on Tisha B'av!
How do we process these mixed messages? The paradox of Tisha B'av lies in the way it seems to encompass both.
It IS very much a sad day during which we pause to reflect on our communal history, our bitter defeats and frequent oppression. It is also, however, an opportune moment to acknowledge our miraculous ability to rebuild, to summon unknown fortitudes that mobilize us to rise up and cheat a salivating history out of our annihilation.
Even as we lean into the void of whatever traumas we still carry, and grieve our losses along with the “sages”— we can seek balance in celebration of the blessings in our lives.
Tisha B'av is actually filled with surprises once you get to know it better. It mentors us in being more thoughtful in our reaction to serious setbacks, by insisting that we encompass the numbness of lost opportunity right alongside the anticipatory exhilaration of all the potential that can yet unfold.
Tisha B'av doesn’t compel us to choose between laughing with the sinners or crying with the saints. To stand in the genuine energy of this time requires guts and a bit of imagination.
The Rebbe taught us more than anyone that waiting passively for the Messiah doesn’t mean weeping in the corner with righteous self-pity at the unfairness of the universe. By injecting a unique grittiness into the equation he untied our hands and empowered us to play the role designated for us in the unfolding of our own destiny. He electrified the “play it safe” trend of Jewish thinking by upending the staid conventional approach to the Messianic axiom of Jewish theology. Before him the prevailing notions, trapped by narrow and restrictive thinking vis-à-vis the Moshiach, treated the concept the way people treated that shlemazel family member: by keeping him at a safe distance. In humanizing these esoteric and sublime ideas, the Rebbe succeeded in destigmatizing them as well. By demonstrating how to “Wait” for the Messiah proactively, with a capital W, the Jewish notion of Redemption began trending.
Upholding Tisha B'av as a one-dimensional interaction with loss and tragedy with no upside, is antithetical to our core Jewish life-affirming ethos. It is tempting to avoid responsibility and hard work by trapping ourselves into experiencing all of life through the paralyzing prism of pain, blame, and shame. In doing so, we self-sabotage by cauterizing our pain in such a way as to also block the flow of any new joy as well. Ignoring that reality, however, is equally perilous.
How then are we to observe Tisha B'av?
The Sages and Rabbi Akivah can be seen, symbolically, as different dimensions of our complex personalities. Together they represent the shades of our wounded selves. We know we are Tishabaving when we can launch ourselves enthusiastically into the discovery of all the goodness waiting to be found, from where we stand tearfully and joyfully, atop the smoldering void, within the very space of all that has been irretrievably lost.